A friend’s story on Zimbabwe

A good “friend” made this story (among others) on Zimbabwe, at the time of the second round for the presidential elections. It was aired on Arte TV.

The vanished Austrian pistols in Iraq

According to a GAO report, 80.000 out of 125.000 Glock Austrian made pistols given by the US to the Iraqi security forces are missing.
Many of them are now in the hands of militiamen, gangsters and criminals, in Iraq and all around the region (including thousands that are being used by a branch of the Turkish mafia).
I made this TV report in a police station of a Shiite neighbourghood of Baghdad. It was aired by Arte on the 20th of April 2008.
Enjoy your viewing.

A TV report on the Sons of Iraq

I just produced this report, aired by the German-French channel Arte, after a week in Tarmiya, North of Baghdad (you can watch the French version here).

It shows how much the American military relies now on local tribal militias in the sunni areas.

I was lucky to attend the capture of two Al-Qaeda suspects.

The local boss of the Sons of Iraq militia was jailed for almost a year, charged with corruption and funding the insurgency. But because no one in town was more pertinent to deal with, nor less corrupted, the US eventually freed him…

An example for the future Iraq!

Kirkuk, the Kurdish Jerusalem

I was last month in Kirkuk, along with my friend and colleague Angélique Férat.
Being there a first time traveller, I was impressed to see the Kurdish faith in this land. It looks very much like a kind of « Kurdish zionism » : Kurds claim to be a people without a land, and say Kirkuk was a land without a people… but with a lot of oil.
Actually, this claim could ignite ethnic tensions beetween Kurds on the first hand, and the other unhabitants of the city, Arabs and Turkomans, on the other.
A very good analysis of this conflict risk was published by the International crisis group, and is available for download here.
And I made this story for Arte Info :